Despite updated Home Office guidance at the start of the year, homeless people are still being fined, receiving criminal convictions and being imprisoned for begging and rough sleeping.

In 2014, local authorities were given strengthened powers to combat anti-social behavior through the introduction of Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs). New guidance tell councils not to misuse antisocial behavior laws by targeting homeless people and says PSPOs, “should not be used to target people based solely on the fact that someone is homeless or rough sleeping”.

Recent Commentaries

Vulnerable women are being sexually exploited on an “industrial scale”, according to an inquiry into ‘pop-up’ brothels by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade.

The investigation was launched following growing reports of organised crime groups establishing so-called ‘pop-up’ brothels — premises rented for short periods where women are sexually exploited.

In an election tarnished by an opposition boycott and claims of vote-rigging, Venezuela’s incumbent President Nicolás Maduro has won re-election.

Despite his growing unpopularity and the country’s deepening economic crisis, President Maduro’s victory was all but assured, thanks to an opposition boycott, a ban on his two most popular rivals, and the alleged use of substantial government resources in his campaign.

The number of registered refugees has reached a record high, with an estimated 25.9 million refugees and asylum seekers. That's a lot of human potential.

Often these refugees are met with hostility by locals and viewed as an added economic burden on already strained infrastructure and basic services. A fresh and innovative approach to how we accommodate displaced people could go a long way to changing this view and provide opportunities for refugees to flourish and contribute in their host countries.

Growing evidence, including a recent report by the Centre for Entrepreneurs, shows that refugees make great entrepreneurs. Given the right opportunities, refugees can not only support themselves but also create jobs in their host countries, reduce refugee-related public spending and strengthen social integration.

At Legatum Institute we believe that all people, regardless of whether they feature in migration, refugee or trafficking statistics should have the opportunity to create their own pathway to prosperity, able to fulfil their vast potential in a safe and secure environment. The Legatum Institute will soon publish the first report of our Global People Movements programme, asking what more we can do to support some of the world's most vulnerable people and provide these opportunities.

Since its inception, the Legatum Institute has been a strong champion of freedom, liberty, and democracy. Our vision for a prosperous world is one in which nations value economic and social wellbeing.

To achieve this, national leaders must ensure their economies are open, individuals are empowered, and societies are inclusive. A key principle underpinning a prosperous society is that its people are free to make their own decisions.

When Philippa Stroud offered me a position as a Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute at the beginning of 2017, I had just finished the close down of Vote Leave. We had finalised the accounts, cleared out the campaign HQ and I was wondering what to do next.

How do you follow one of the most historic events of recent years?

What I wanted to do was to take stock of what had happened, and understand the wider international context to the Brexit vote. And Philippa was kind enough to give me a warm space and a friendly home to research, write and speak about the political change Britain and the world was experiencing.

A United Nations Security Council delegation has expressed dismay at the continued suffering of the Rohingya people following a recent visit to refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya people have fled their homes in the northern Rakhine province of Myanmar (Burma) since August 2017, resulting in what is considered the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis. While the UN has already condemned the violence as both ethnic cleansing and having “all the hallmarks of genocide”, this week's delegation is the first visit by the Security Council, which has the power to refer matters to the international criminal court (ICC) and deploy peacekeepers. Commenting on their trip, the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, Karen Pierce said, "the most important thing is to create the conditions on the ground so the refugees can go home in safety and security."

With Emmanuel Macron’s official state visit to the US, Angela Merkel’s markedly more low-key trip to fend off a trade war with the EU, and the announcement that Donald Trump will visit the UK in July, relations between North America and the three key Western European powers has featured heavily in the news recently.

One of the most remarkable findings from our 2017 Prosperity Index was that North America had fallen behind Western Europe to become the second most prosperous region in the world, for the first time in the publication’s history. Prosperity in North America declined faster than in any other region in 2017, driven by weakening Social Capital, Personal Freedom and Safety and Security.

Since 1970, the number of people around the world living in severe poverty has declined by eighty per cent, due in large part to the role of free markets and free enterprise.

This was one of countless thought-provoking arguments advanced by Arthur Brooks during a whirlwind tour of London this week. The outgoing president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and bestselling author has become one of the world's foremost advocates for free markets for their role as one of the most effective pathways from poverty.

Want to know more? You can find out about Arthur and his work here, watch his 2016 TED talk here or read his regular column in the New York Timeshere.

Despite being increasingly connected via social media, new statistics suggest that young people are longing for a meaningful sense of community.

New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 16-24 year-olds in the UK are three times more likely to feel "always or often" lonely compared with those over 64. In addition, one in ten young adults reported regularly feeling lonely, compared with one in twenty in other age groups. Loneliness can have a profound impact on the mental and physical health of people of all ages, with studies deeming it more dangerous than smoking and obesity.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) currently underway is the perfect petri dish for the start of trade talks.

These 54 heads of government, plus business representatives from each country, can say with authority (and this week, in privacy) what they would need to make a Commonwealth free trade agreement (FTA) happen.

The Commonwealth has not historically been a trading organisation, and at present its members are bound only by the bilateral agreements they have independently signed with one another. But Brexit presents the opportunity to rethink its strategic value as an organisation which covers five continents and billions of people.

The recent chemical attack on Douma is the latest atrocity in a civil war which has had a devastating impact on Syria's civilian population.

The civil war in Syria has just entered its eighth year. And as the attack in Douma demonstrates, it shows little sign of abating. Its impact on the country’s people and communities has been truly devastating, with hundreds of thousands of civilians killed. Additionally, close to six million Syrians have fled the country as refugees, with a similar number now displaced internally within its borders.

The number of potential victims of trafficking and modern slavery in the UK has risen by more than a third, according to a new report released by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

The figures show that in 2017 5,145 potential victims were referred to the NCA, up from 3,804 in 2016. Those referred as victims of modern slavery and human trafficking (MSHT) came from 116 different nationalities, with UK, Albanian and Vietnamese nationals remaining the most commonly reported victims. For the first time British citizens were the largest nationality recorded in the figures, up from 326 in 2016 to 819 in 2017. The increase in British numbers is largely down to an increase in minors being referred as suspected victims of labour or sexual exploitation, up 66 per cent.

The profile of Ethiopia's leader-in-waiting promises to bring three years of anti-government protests to an end.

Africa’s second most populous country has been in a state of emergency since February, following Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s unexpected resignation after five years in power. His departure came in response to three years of social unrest which have claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Protests have been caused by persistent concerns over human rights violations including the imprisonment, torture and extrajudicial killing of political dissidents.

"The problems of council management (sometimes good, sometimes bad, always in charge) cannot be solved by one inquiry or one new management team. The good news is that the residents of the Lancaster West Estate (of which Grenfell Tower is part) are starting to consider alternative models.

One suggestion, as Danny Kruger and I argue in a new paper, is for residents to take over running the estate as a Community Land Trust. These have a long pedigree in rural areas; now the model is catching on in cities. On the Walterton and Elgin estates in Westminster, residents forced the council to hand over their homes in 1992. They now run the place. More are planned across London."

Last week's creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) brings into being one of the world's largest free trade blocs, which promises to open the continent's economies to unprecedented trade and investment.

Trade between African nations remains comparatively low, accounting for only around ten per cent of commerce on the continent. CFTA, agreed at the AU's recent summit in Kigali, is designed to change that, by allowing the free flow of goods and services between its members. The UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) has estimated its impact could increase intra-African trade by as much as 52 per cent by 2022, compared with trade levels in 2010.

"My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 222. Human trafficking is one of the great global scourges of our generation. Globally, 66,520 people were identified as victims of human trafficking in 2016—a 40% increase from 2012. Even this number may represent less than 1% of the real scale of the problem.

Identifying and assisting victims of human trafficking is complex because their situations are complex and hidden. Someone may start their journey as a migrant but end up being exploited because of their vulnerability, and become a victim of human trafficking. The situation of a person who has been trafficked is desperate—stripped of agency, power and dignity, often in an unfamiliar country, with little way out."

Everyone agrees the Grenfell Tower disaster must usher in a new era of social housing in the UK. The danger is that it sends us back to a very old era, when the council owned, managed and controlled community housing.

There is another way forward, one which meets the rightful sense of injustice felt by people living on Lancaster West, the estate where Grenfell Tower stands – not the injustice of a botched refurbishment which (probably) caused the tragedy, but the injustice of residents not being listened to when they raised concerns, over many years, about their safety or quality of life.

No change in governance or management can make good what happened last year. But if the right decisions are taken, the legacy for the community and for society can, in part, be a good one. Our hope is that the neighbourhood of Grenfell Tower may make something beautiful for the future: a new model of community living that will inspire the rest of London and the UK.

"Unaccompanied children face unacceptable risks. For some 300,000 unaccompanied child refugees, the risks of trafficking and forced prostitution or forced labour are extremely high. We know that in the Mediterranean, more than 75% of the 1,600 14 to 16 year-olds arriving in Italy reported being held against their will or forced to work. This staggering statistic is why we should be working to ensure that there are accessible, legal pathways which allow children to apply for asylum safely from the country they are in, and not be forced to take dangerous journeys to join their families."

Matthew Elliott debated with Italian economist, Beatrice Faleri about the impact of the Italian election. He says the election of a populist, eurosceptic government in one of the EU’s founding member states is not good news for Presidents Macron and Juncker who have spent the past six months trying to shift the EU in a more integrationist direction.

In an article for the Daily Telegraph, Shanker Singham, Chairman of our Special Trade Commission, writes that if global Britain is to mean anything, post-Brexit, it should include committing to and abiding by World Trade Organization and other international trade rules, pursuing national and commercial interests, deepening trade ties, and opposing protectionism in all its forms.

Shanker Singham, Chair of our Special Trade Commission, was asked by BBC Radio4's Today Programme about the changes he expects to occur as a result of the UK leaving the European Union.

Shanker says that regulatory autonomy is important so that we can improve our own regulatory environment, work decisively in organisations such as the World Trade Organization and sign advanced, liberalising trade deals with other countries.

Participating in City AM's debate with Labour MP Alison McGovern, Radomir argued that membership of TPP would demonstrate Britain’s new trading independence.

The TPP is one of the most advanced trade agreements in the world, but doubters have suggested that, not being a Pacific nation, Britain should not or cannot join. Not so. TPP is an open agreement, and signatories have indicated they want us on board.

But we won’t be able to join in just any circumstances. We will need control over not only tariffs, but also regulations currently determined by the EU. Many do not meet TPP standards – for example, in data flows and agriculture – as they favour incumbents, harming consumer welfare. Being ready to join the TPP, and other agreements, will require that we determine regulations ourselves.

Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing region in the world, and the TPP gives Britain a trading opportunity we should not miss.

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